Tobacco Underground

In 2008, Duncan worked on the ICIJ's major investigation into the multibillion pound global industry of black market tobacco. The project revealed how the sale of illegal cigarettes funds organised crime and terrorism, and is occasionally encouraged by Big Tobacco.

Billions of black market Jin Ling cigarettes are turning up across Europe. Jin Ling, however, could not be purchased even in the shops, markets, or street stalls, but was freely available in bulk to smugglers.

Sociologist Luk Joossens is one of the world’s top experts on tobacco smuggling. In 1995, he co-authored a paper that alerted the world about a striking disparity between cigarette exports and imports — that billions of cigarettes were missing and likely diverted to black markets in dozens of countries. Today, Joossens is one of six experts advising the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control — a global treaty to reduce tobacco use — on how to crack down on the booming underground trade in cigarettes.

In this video interview, conducted by veteran ICIJ reporters Duncan Campbell and Alain Lallemand in Belgium, Joossens talks about some of the most pressing issues in tobacco smuggling, from Russian-made cigarettes pouring into Europe’s black markets to China’s massive cigarette counterfeiting industry.